The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*
It has been a surprise to find out that Joe and Mary Ann were not here in 1939 and of course begs the question of where they were.
They were the first occupants when the house was built in 1915 and were still here 58 years later, but not in 1939.
And this I know because they are missing from the 1939 Register and the house is listed as vacant.
They could of course have been on holiday, but given that they would have known that the Register had to be completed, you would have thought they would have made provision to fill it in.
The year before the Government had decided that in the event of war, a National Register would be taken that listed the personal details of every civilian in Great Britain and Northern Ireland which in turn would be used to compile identity and rationing cards.
National Registration Day was September 29th and a team of enumerators visited every household, collecting the names, addresses, and martial statuses of every civilian in the country, issuing identity cards on the spot.
But not it seems Joe and Mary Ann who are not listed anywhere on the Register.
I suppose they could have been abroad, but given the international scene in the September of 1939 that seems unlikely.
That just leaves a trawl of the directories for 1939 into the early 1940s, along with the electoral registers which will at least tell us if they were back on Beech Road in 1940.
I had hoped that the 1939 Register would have offered up more, it is after all a vital source of information for the period, especially as the 1931 census for England & Wales was totally destroyed by a fire in 1942, and the 1941 census was not taken due to the war. Added to which the census for 1921 will not be published for another three years.
All of which means that the 1939 Register is an important source of information, but sadly not in the case of Joe and Mary Ann.
But they will turn up somewhere, of that I have every confidence.
Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy
Picture; the house in 2017,and an identity card, 1949, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*The story of a house, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house
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| Joe and Mary Ann's house, 2017 |
They were the first occupants when the house was built in 1915 and were still here 58 years later, but not in 1939.
And this I know because they are missing from the 1939 Register and the house is listed as vacant.
They could of course have been on holiday, but given that they would have known that the Register had to be completed, you would have thought they would have made provision to fill it in.
The year before the Government had decided that in the event of war, a National Register would be taken that listed the personal details of every civilian in Great Britain and Northern Ireland which in turn would be used to compile identity and rationing cards.
National Registration Day was September 29th and a team of enumerators visited every household, collecting the names, addresses, and martial statuses of every civilian in the country, issuing identity cards on the spot.
 |
| An identity card, 1949, but not theirs. |
I suppose they could have been abroad, but given the international scene in the September of 1939 that seems unlikely.
That just leaves a trawl of the directories for 1939 into the early 1940s, along with the electoral registers which will at least tell us if they were back on Beech Road in 1940.
I had hoped that the 1939 Register would have offered up more, it is after all a vital source of information for the period, especially as the 1931 census for England & Wales was totally destroyed by a fire in 1942, and the 1941 census was not taken due to the war. Added to which the census for 1921 will not be published for another three years.
All of which means that the 1939 Register is an important source of information, but sadly not in the case of Joe and Mary Ann.
But they will turn up somewhere, of that I have every confidence.
Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy
Picture; the house in 2017,and an identity card, 1949, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*The story of a house, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house
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